glanced into the gaping black chasm below him now and then as he descended and saw the faint glow of light from Arnold’s hardhat. When he reached the hole at the bottom of the pit, he lay on his front, dangled his legs over the edge and slowly slid down into the darkness.
‘You’ve got to see this,’ he heard Arnold say in the distance, as though he was talking to no one in particular. He said it again, and this time there was a note of bewilderment in his voice. ‘You’ve got to see this!’
The lamp on Peter’s helmet gave off a bright, broad beam of light, but it only made the gloom beyond it seem even blacker.
Arnold had walked in the direction of the Hooglandse Kerk and then stopped, a few metres away from Peter.
‘What, exactly, have I got to see?’ Peter asked. But as soon as he got closer, he saw what Arnold meant. Fixed to the wall at shoulder height was a metal ring that held a blackened torch.
Arnold touched it hesitantly, as though he expected it to burn his hand. He looked at his sooty fingers and rubbed them together.
‘That’s what my hands look like when I clean out the grate after we’ve been burning logs all evening. This torch has only just been put out.’
‘What is this?’ Peter said, astonished by how calmly Arnold was handling this absurd situation, as though he had been through much worse before.
Suddenly, they heard something fall not far from where they were standing. Arnold turned around so abruptly that his hardhat fell off. He clumsily tried to catch it, but lost his balance and banged his head hard on the rough wall. He reeled and crashed into Peter, who barely managed to catch him.
‘What was that?’ Arnold asked. His voice came out strangled and shrill, like a frightened child’s. All the bravura he’d put on display earlier was gone in an instant. He bent down to pick up his helmet.
Peter looked behind him at the spot where the faint light from outside permeated the thick, black darkness. They heard Daniël shout something, but couldn’t make out the words. It was only then that Peter noticed that Arnold was bleeding from a large scratch on his forehead.
‘You’re bleeding, Arnold. We should go back.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Arnold said, wiping the blood from his brow with his sleeve. ‘I feel fine. Don’t worry.’
Peter walked back to the spot where they had entered the tunnel and shouted up to the surface. ‘Did you say something, Daniël?’
‘We’ve thrown a rope down!’ Janna shouted back. ‘Can you see it?’
Peter looked down and saw a long rope coiled near his feet.
‘Like Ariadne, remember, in Knossos. In the Minotaur’s labyrinth.’
‘Thanks! But we’re coming back up in a minute!’ he shouted. His words were meant for Arnold rather than Janna, but Arnold had already moved a few paces further down from the torch.
Peter put the end of the rope under a pile of bricks that had been left when the tunnel collapsed. If they didn’t pull on it too hard, it would stay where it was. He had no intention of going any further into the tunnel than the rope was long.
‘I hope your initial curiosity has been satisfied,’ he said as he unwound the thin, strong rope. ‘Let’s go a bit further. We’ve got about thirty metres of rope here, I think.’
But Arnold had already walked away. Peter couldn’t tell if this was the overconfidence of a drunkard, or the burning desire to beat him to an archaeological scoop. Peter quickened his step so that he wouldn’t fall too far behind.
All at once, the light from Arnold’s headlamp vanished.
‘Arnold!’ Peter shouted. His voice echoed through the chamber.
‘I’m here!’ came the distant reply. Peter realised that the tunnel must have curved away from him so that the light from Arnold’s helmet was no longer visible.
They had walked about twenty metres now; Peter had let out more than two-thirds of the rope.
He walked further down the tunnel and saw that he had been right about the bend. Arnold came into view again, standing still and staring upwards as though there was something fascinating there. Peter stood next to him and looked at the same spot, but saw nothing.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘I’m not looking, I’m listening.’ He raised his hand and pointed a finger in the air. ‘Shush.’
Peter listened intently. He could hear the faint gurgle of flowing water. It was coming from … below them.
Arnold stamped his foot on the ground. ‘Ab urbe condita … ’ he said solemnly. ‘Are you familiar with the work of Livy?’
Arnold was fond of demonstrating the knowledge of Greek and Latin he’d gained at grammar school, although in practice this was limited to recitations of a few well-known sayings and proverbs.
From the foundation of the city … The opening lines of Livy’s history of the city of Rome.
‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say I was familiar with his work,’ Peter replied, ‘but I know that saying, naturally.’
‘Exactly, this is … It looks like this was planned when the city was founded. I believe what we hear below us is part of a drainage system. It must be … You would usually expect to see groundwater this far down. You wouldn’t be able to dig this without anyone knowing about it. Not if the city had already been built above you.’
Peter was becoming increasingly excited about what they had found. They couldn’t even begin to imagine what the consequences of their discovery would be. But at the same time, he felt a growing disquiet. A young man covered in blood in subterranean passage … Who knew what other macabre things took place here?
‘Listen, Arnold, this is all fantastic, and you’re … We’re the first people to come down here, apart from the poor man who ended up under a pile of rubble this afternoon … But let’s leave it at this for now. We’ve satisfied our initial curiosity. We can come back tomorrow with more people, more light, and we definitely need more rope. It’d be irresponsible of us to go further now. We don’t know what’s down there. You’ve wounded your head … After the weekend, we’ll have the Geo—’
But Arnold was deaf to his objections and walked away from him again. ‘Just a bit further. This is …’
The beams from their headlamps cast grotesque shadows on the walls. Their footsteps sounded hollow.
We must be under the Hooglandse Kerk by now, Peter thought. But there was no sign of a way out or up. When he looked around him, he had to admit that he was impressed by the neatly constructed walls, by the solid arch of the ceiling, by the dry, even floor, by the drainage system.
They were running out of rope. It would reach as far as where Arnold was standing now, a few metres away from Peter.
Arnold carried on walking.
‘Hey, will you listen to me? We’re going back. We
